Good morning. Hello. How are you? #891
Plugging friends projects! Getting estimates. Nuances of cardboard tape removal.
Good morning! Hello! Happy Friday. How are you? I am good. Just slept my last night, I think, of quarantine over in the guest house. Coming home tonight. That’ll be nice. Jane will be asleep by then so I won’t really get to give my daughter hugs until tomorrow, but I’ll get so sleep in my own bed and see my wife and catch up on Succession and Mrs Davis with her. Don’t sleep on Mrs Davis, it really is something else.
I’m writing to you this morning before the Walmart run, I know you’re very sad about this. And before the recycling run. It’s gonna be a doozy, too, let me tell you. Lotta Walmart aspirations today. Nice long list, gonna take me all over the store and into parts I don’t often step — like the linens section. Very exciting indeed, let me tell you.
I did go to the collection center already though. I went yesterday. I chopped up that smelly old workbench top and loaded it into the truck and threw it into the bulk items dumpster. I hate particle board. I hate how it’s ruined after it gets wet. I hate how it cannot be composted or mulched. That shit is the worst. Feels so wasteful to toss it.
Also there were four whole, intact couches at the collection center in the free stuff section, Real opportunity there. I suspect this is related to the UNC semester ending?
It’s raining. This is good. I have laid out giant pieces of cardboard to get wet so I can peel the tape off so I can use them in covering up grass. Removing tape from cardboard intended for grass covering use is very a very different process than removing tape from cardboard intended to be shredded into mulch. With the latter you can just cut the tape off. With the former, you need the whole piece of cardboard to be intact. I should write a book about just this topic. It really is very interesting, let me tell you.
Thank you for all your helpful advice about coffee. I think I have a plan now. To be clear, I already have the kettle, French press and drip coffee maker here at the guest house. So I will buy some coffee filters (compostable and recycled, of course) for the drip machine, and then I will buy a grinder and a coffee storage can (vented, of course), and then buy beans for the French press/grinder affair and grounds for the drip machine (for groups and speed) and keep it in the freezer.
Shout out especially to my old friend Briana, who know owns a wonderful coffee shop in Biddeford, Maine, outside of Portland. Do stop in if you’re ever in the area. It kinda sucks coffee only keeps a few months in a freezer. Actually you know what would be awesome, Briana? I see you have a subscription but it’s like a coffee obsessive’s subscription. What about a mini-subscription for guest houses, one or two bags every couple of months? I suppose I’d be the only person signing up for that huh.
Hrm actually while we’re doing plugs let’s do a few more:
Aaron Perrino, life and soul of two legendary Boston bands The Shiela Divine and and Dear Leader, is looking to start an occult-themed sandwich shop in Salem, MA. he is running a fundraiser/investment opportunity on Manivest. Consider investing if you like sandwiches or the occult. It’s got good graphics too:
And, finally, my good friend Lisa Carver has a new book out. Lisa writes books about her life. She has written 20 of them or so. She is a longtime comrade-in-arms in the art of life documentation via the written word, only a) hers are written with intention for to be a book, and written intended to be published, whereas my main journal is written intended to be private, and b) she actually gets around to publishing the books, whereas I’ve only managed to do this once with Good Morning Hello How Are You (volume one?).
So, do consider buying Lisa’s new book, No Man’s Land. It is a great one. Lisa’s been through a lot lately, it makes for great reading, and also, of course, every author could use every sale.
Hrm I think that’s everything to plug? I should make Fridays “plug my friends projects” day. Got a project to plug? Let me know!
Yesterday I got estimates on a new solar roof — very cool, not too expensive, actually, compared to getting a new roof and new solar, plus (and this is crazy!) the federal tax credit for solar applies to the whole roof. It is awesome it’s almost like getting free solar? I also got an estimate on removing the two traditional hot water heaters this house has, in the attic, and replacing them with a single tankless unit in the basement. Hot water heaters in unheated attics is a recipe for disaster. And while I will be enclosing the attic into the envelope, reducing the freeze risk, it’s still real bad to pointlessly risk having your entire house get flooded. Also two is complete overkill — the water here still takes forever to get hot, and I am paying to keep like 110 gallons of water hot at all times in a guest house which is a pointless waste of electricity. So that is probably a thing I’m doing now. I want to do the roof right now but they gave me two options, small solar system and large, and I could easily afford the small right now but I want the large and it is a lot more and that would stretch me pretty tight. So… I think that has to wait. Which is sad. But the other projects are more fun: Greenhouse and attic-into-studio and I can get both of those done for less than the big system, so that is the plan.
All right. I am off to Walmart and the collection center before I start ranting about NC politics and the new abortion limitations and the court packing and the absolute…. okay yeah maybe another day.
Justa mix for you today, mostly new stuff, few classics running through my head of late. Starts off real rocking but don’t worry it displays some sophistication and nuance as things go on.
Have a lovely weekend. See you Monday!
Looking at your friend's shop in Biddeford, it's right across the street from the mill where my dad and uncles worked long, long ago. I'll check it out next time I'm there (hopefully this summer). I was born in Biddeford!
love hearing about all your projects for the satellite house!
and ugh, heather cox richardson’s write up from last night is the most depressing in a while.